96 comments:

Matt
said...

I think this vindicates Moynihan, actually. Drinking hard is a success indicator. Everybody wants to get out of their minds sometimes, and if the majority of people are doing it on alcohol, that means that they're more social and less destructive than hard drug users.

Hey, this reminds me of Roosh's (Roissy's friend) experiencein Iceland. Everybody gets completely hammered and then has sex with other random people at the end of the night. I wonder if Icelandic people would manage to reproduce without alcohol.

btw, binge drinking makes more sense in cold places. For about half the year, going out to a bar is something ranging from a chore to an arctic expedition. You don't do it often and when you do, you want to get drunk enough to forget the cold.

Higher IQ is associated with Binge drinking so paradoxically this is actually a correlate of moynihans law http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-drink-more-alcohol

"Anyone offer insights as to why binge drinking predicts these things at the state level?"

Binge drinking is a northern European tradition from the "Booze Belt", I.e. Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway. It´s a marker for Scandiness, in short. Just as "distance to the Canadian border" is a marker for the share of northern Europeans in the population.

In practice, most social problems that do exist amongst Scandis relate to alcohol and binge drinking somehow. (Well, there is a sprinkling of those other drugs in the social misery mix, of course, but alcohol takes the crown hands down).

Hence, alcohol has long been heavily regulated in these parts of the woods.

As pointed out elsewhere, I would attribute the tradition of binge drinking to it being a much-appreciated escape from the strict social mores of everyday Scandi life. You get wasted and have fun for once, in short. Scandis minus binge drinking are Mormons.

The also-strict Japanese take a similar approach to letting their hair down, although their approach focuses more on more frequent after-work drinking with the boss (while the Scandis get completely smashed once or twice on the Weekend).

Everyone knows... I mean, I have a friend who is a huge Beta... And he says, he drinks to bring everyone else down to a level where they can communicate... Girls, especially... Or so he says. Gilbert Pinfold.

"Anyone offer insights as to why binge drinking predicts these things at the state level?" Call me a cynic, but might it be related to the likelihood that a doctor's definition of binge drinking differs considerably from the layman's?

I dunno,but maybe a combination of inherited Western European cultural norms in which binge drinking is more acceptable, a more socially liberal environment and a lesser amount of dogmatic religious believers could go some of the distance toward explaining this? Utah's relative temperance is pretty easy to explain OTOH.

Drinking is positively correlated to IQ, sociability and career success at the individual level. But I think that is a steady, moderate level of drinking -- in fact I think binge drinking starts to be correlated with negative outcomes at the individual level. So if you were to do anything at the state level it would be very important to adjust for the overall level of drinking so as not to conflate drinking in general with binge drinking in particular.

If you read the linked NYT piece, you see that what they were measuring was not binge drinking as a normal person would understand it, but rather "binge drinking", which means drinking enough in an hour to get tipsy (0.08 blood alcohol):Binge drinking is ... defined as five or more drinks on a single occasion for men or four or more drinks on a single occasion for women, generally within about two hours.... This level of drinking would typically raise blood alcohol levels to 0.08 percent and make a person legally impaired to drive.People were not asked if they "binge drink" or whatever. You can see the actual survey at this link: http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/questionnaires/pdf-ques/2010brfss.pdf. Look for section 13.

Of course, actual binge drinkers drink that much, but they do it and keep going. Lots of people like to get a buzz on after a hard day at work; this is not a "binge". Lots of people like to go out on Saturday night and get a little drunk when socializing and dancing. This is also not a binge. At least not the way I understand the word.

In other words, this "study" is a typical product of the Puritan progressive mindset. It's bogus. Alarmism in the guise of science; a manufactured "problem" used to justify giving state funding to the manufacturer.

I find it amazing how the same pattern of a north-south decline in civic virtue, accompanied by a decline in massive drinking, holds true across North America, Europe and East Asia. In the latter, the South Koreans, despite all God's efforts with their physique, actually manage to pile away more alcohol per capita than the British, while the Singaporeans get outquaffed by desperately poor, overwhelmingly Islamic Iraq. But it's the South Koreans who have made the successful transition to democracy, and their educational output legendarily second to none.

Was there something in all those 19th century worries that a hot climate sapped initiative and vigour, and would turn British colonists into decadent layabouts unfit for proper Imperial rule and stout north-European binge drinking?

aw now you're making me homesick for LA. When I was growing up, it seemed like everyone drank socially, and kept liquor at home. You'd go to someone's house, and first thing they'd ask what you wanted to drink. It seems unimaginable now.

In contrast, I worked in Dallas from 1979-1982, and didn't notice a very boozey culture there except among the old. The younger ones were just as likely to drink Dr. Pepper. And I worked in a bar.

I recall coming across a blog post somewhere - I thought it may have been parapundit/futurepundit, but I can't find it there - linking binge drinking to better college performance, and there is some research to suggest that alcohol consumption increases brain plasticity. So even in their dysfunctional behaviors the North chooses well.

In my experience real alcoholics aren't always binge drinkers. Instead many prefer to keep a 24/7 buzz. They may even just drink 3.2 beer, but they're always drinking one.

Maybe in MN or Iowa. If you think drinking hasn't had "serious consequences" for Wisconsin you've never been there. Whole place is sozzled.

Iowa and Minn were exactly the states I was thinking of when I wrote that. You could probably also throw in NE, SD, and ND too. In HS, we drove to Wisconsin to get our binge on where the drinking age was still 18yo in the 1980s.

Binge drinking is ... defined as five or more drinks on a single occasion for men

That's hardly enough to get blotto on over a cold winter's night in the upper Midwest. Especially for young, high-metabolic and big-boned Germanic and Nordic types.

Some of those states along the Canadian border should consider raising the alcohol tax in order to reduce binge drinking. With the revenue they could probably afford to lower corporate income taxes. Minnesota has a corporate income tax rate of almost 10% (this in addition to Federal taxes).

anonymouse: Certainly, the guy who has five kids by five moms and gets the moms' families and the state to pay for their upbringing is a success in genetic terms. With luck, his make offspring will follow his pattern, and his female offspring will start reproducing at 16. And unlike raising five kids at middle class standards (which requires starting relatively early, making decent money somehow, and making a lot of financial sacrifices), this is something you can do even if you stopped going to school in the ninth grade, because you still couldn't read a Dr Seuss book.

Skimming over the comments, I'm rather surprised that no one suggests what seems to me the obvious HBD explanation...

Basically, a vulnerability toward alcoholism (e.g. "binge-drinking") is extremely common among peoples, but gradually gets bred-out (for obvious reasons) once they become civilized and have easy access to alcohol. Therefore, that tendency has been greatly reduced among peoples which have been civilized for a very long time.

In Europe, the Nordics and Northern Slavs have been civilized for the fewest generations, and they have the greatest vulnerability to alcohol. The various Med peoples and the middle-easterners have been civilized the longest and they are the most immune. The Germanics and Anglo-Saxons fall in the middle in both categories.

Similarly, the wild Amerind tribes of North America had gigantic alcohol problems and their descendants still do today. Meanwhile, the Southern Amerinds had long been civilized, and so Mestizo Latinos tend to have far fewer problems. The Chinese and other East Asian peoples are also relatively invulnerable, just like the European Meds, and for exactly the same reason. None of these rules are absolute, but the general pattern seems pretty clear.

Since the Upper Midwest (especially Wisconsin) was largely settled by Nordics and Germanics, it's hardly surprising alcohol is a big problem there. But since Nordics and Germanics are otherwise orderly, high-ability people, those areas do very well in academic testing and other things. The founding Mormons tended to be pretty heavily Nordic or Anglo-Saxon, but their religion bans alcohol, so in that case memes trump genes.

It would help if these data were broken out by ethnicity. California, Florida, the black south especially.

First, nice grammar with the plural "data". Second, I'd like to see the ethnic breakdown as well. I don't think Blacks do very much binge drinking compared to Whites and Mexicans. Mexican men seem to binge-dring a lot, but the mestizas don't seem to particpate. White women, however, do seem more inclined to binge-drink, whether it's Montana, Minnesota, Massachusetts, or Mississippi.

I have been to family gatherings from fairly high end ones in Wellesley & Newton to average blue collar towns and even once to a double wide. White people drink at family gatherings. It doesn't mean fights break out.

A genetically communicated deficiency in the ability to metabolize acetaldehyde makes for people who either get sick from drinking immediately, or can drink forever and not feel it...till they are effectively poisoned. They are less likely to become alcoholics, but more likely to suffer damage from "binge drinking."

Finns have this gene in common with many Asians. It probably arose from the same far northern/very cold human genome.

As for drinking in the cold to get through long dark nights, that's absurd. And what saunas are for. People of far northern genetic makeup slow down in the cold and dark, burn food energy more efficiently, and are just fine hunkering.

Also, all I see on that map is the distribution of honest responses to a survey question.

During the days of the Soviet Union,every weekend,thousands of Finns would descend on Leningrad for two days of non-stop boozing.Everybody was happy;the Finns got their cheap drink,the Russians earned some useful foreign currency.The Soviets even had special police squads to round up the Finns on Sunday evenings and pour them back onto the ferries.All very good natured.

Then Finland liberalized the availability and price of alchoholand,voila,Finnish consumption dropped.

The Swedes and Norweigians used to(maybe still do) make a similar pilgrimage to Denmark,not a cheap location,but far cheaper than their Scandi brothers.

Mind you,today,if you get the ferry from Tallin,Estonia to Helsinki,you will be astonished that the ferry does not capsize such is the amount of booze the Finns bring home with them.

Leonard made a key contribution upthread. The questionnaire doesn't ask about "binge drinking"; the term is defined by the CDC study's authors, and carried forward by the NYT's Tara Parker-Pope. Leonard proved his assertion by linking to the questionnaire, pointing to Section 13. PDF. Nicely done.

Does "five or more drinks on a single occasion for men or four or more drinks on a single occasion for women, generally within about two hours" map to the lay person's commonsense notion of "binging" (and the behavior associated with the term)? Seems to me the answer is "yes" for some drinkers, "no" for others.

North Dakotans drink because there's very little else to do in a little town. High school kids can drink, have sex or they can cruise Main Street on a Saturday night -- not much else. It is probably the main contributor to the crime we do have, whether it's vandalism, drunk driving accidents, domestic abuse and sexual assaults.

"I have been to family gatherings from fairly high end ones in Wellesley & Newton to average blue collar towns and even once to a double wide. White people drink at family gatherings. It doesn't mean fights break out."

Wellesley not so much, but Newton is quite Jewish (about a third according to Wikipedia), to the point where it's known as 'Jewtown', along with its neighbor 'Baruchline' (Brookline). It was the safest town in America quite recently, and I think is now fourth safest or some such thing. But it bankrupted itself on--don't laugh--the high school.

"Being a bartender down South is quite easy, you just pop the top on a pop and hand over the bottle."

You've clearly never been to the south. "Pop" is a midwestern-ism. All soft drinks in the south are called "cokes", even if they're not coca-cola or even a coke product. Also, most southerners drink alchohol (although some Christian denominations in the south have a weird habit of permitting beer-drinking but forbidding "spirits").

"During the days of the Soviet Union,every weekend,thousands of Finns would descend on Leningrad for two days of non-stop boozing.Everybody was happy;the Finns got their cheap drink,the Russians earned some useful foreign currency.The Soviets even had special police squads to round up the Finns on Sunday evenings and pour them back onto the ferries.All very good natured."

I once talked to a lady who visited Finland. She said the police in Finland do the same thing. On Friday and Saturday nights, at least in some communities, the police have drunk wagons that cruise the streets picking up Finns who've passed out in the cold.

The relaxing of law in the liquour industry will stimulate economic development in the food and service industry. The push-back from citizens concerned with the effect of increased libation will stimulate increased interest in analysis of the Good. It's a win-win decision.

In Europe, the Nordics and Northern Slavs have been civilized for the fewest generations, and they have the greatest vulnerability to alcohol. The various Med peoples and the middle-easterners have been civilized the longest and they are the most immune. The Germanics and Anglo-Saxons fall in the middle in both categories.

Southeast Asians notably don't have a problem with alcoholism, any more than more Northern Asians, likewise for South Asians in India.

I'm not sure these groups have been brewing for longer.

One idea to reconcile this with your concept, might be that tropical groups are protected due to the presence of naturally fermenting high sugar crops that can be used for alcohol. But I don't really find this that credible an idea.

I don't really buy the idea that there is a psychological separate module for alcohol consumption though - alcohol consumption probably relates in a complex way to attitudes towards fun, extraversion and physiological alcohol tolerance (e.g. there are alleles in at least the Ashkenazi and East Asian populations on the ALDH2 gene which make these populations more likely to get sick when they have alcohol). There are also derived alleles within the European population which seem to drive desire for alcohol - http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007070.

One thing that's struck me is the decline of alcoholism as an issue in the US.

Before the Prohibition, it seems to have been regarded as perhaps the greatest of social evils. And even in the Fifties and Sixties much was made of alcoholism as a problem.

But nowadays one hardly hears ANYTHING about it. I certainly can see that some of the alcoholism problem has become, say, a cocaine problem or perhaps even a heroin problem. But I very much doubt that these exhibit anything like the same scope as alcoholism did in its heyday.

Where did all the alcoholics, and the terrible toll they took on families, make off to?

Are people today just drinking much less? Is it a case of media hysteria back before Prohibition, and today they lose their perspective over something else?

"Meanwhile, the Southern Amerinds had long been civilized, and so Mestizo Latinos tend to have far fewer problems."My experience has been that Mexicans drink heavily. However, I'll admit that maybe they weren't a representative sample. I can believe that mestizos might have less of a problem with drinking than pure or mostly-pure Amerinds, assuming the "number of generations brewing" theory is true, because they are admixed heavily with Meditarranean people.

"That said, society gave up fighting alchohol per se. It got much harder about locking up drunk drivers."

Though I'm still taken aback when I observe a priest drinking alcohol and continuing to the point of drunkenness, I believe Protestants have exaggerated the perils of inebriation to the extreme. Evidence abounds that the use of moderate quantities of alcohol actually improves health especially as one approaches middle age. I would try to link this to studies on the effects of stress on the body had I the degree that would make me credible as a medical researcher. I'd approach the evidence on two fronts: that easing the physiological response to stress protects both body and mind and that alcohol, like certain foods, acts as roto rooter for the arteries.

When responsible people choose to indulge in anything potentially dangerous, they feel the need to over plan, and they require a number of conditions to be in place to ensure that everything goes smoothly. This limits how often people get to indulge because it takes time and effort to get everything in order. So every opportunity to indulge that comes to pass becomes somewhat of a special occasion, and people do a bit more than they would have if the opportunity presented itself every day.

For example, in college I identified as a drug user. That meant that if i didn't have to study, work or volunteer that day or the morning after, if the drugs came from an absolutely reliable source, if there was a safe comfortable location with reliable, familiar, friendly people present, then I'd love to do drugs with you. Now, this resulted in me smoking pot and/or taking shrooms less than 20 times, evenly spread throughout my college career, including summers. Also, since it was so hard to find the time and the correct set of circumstances, I pushed myself past my comfort zone each time. Now, a real druggy would probably laugh at what I considered risky and past my comfort zone, but it was in comparison with my normal behavior, and I would report it as such if asked. All in all, I was probably safer on the days that I did drugs than on my average day. So, maybe, that's why the states that report more binge drinking also have less traffic accidents.

"There is no "absolutely reliable source" for illegal drugs. Responsible people don't do them."

You are right. And 100% responsible people don't binge drink either. However, there are various levels of irresponsibility and various ways people choose to plan (or not plan) for irresponsible behavior).

Oh, and my somewhat reliable drug sources were students in biotechnology and biochemistry at elite universities. They all went onto grad studies in hard sciences. One is doing research at Cambridge, from what I hear. According to my fellow Teach for America fellows, this kind of a thing is very common. Boys in elite science programs often like to mix their own medicine and grow their own mushrooms/weed. The one who, as I was told, is now at Cambridge separated the organic chemical substance responsible for hallucinogenic effect from his favorite mushroom and cloned it. Still not fully safe, but if I was going to chance it, I chose to put my safety in the hands of highly successful, productive people who enjoyed their own product. And I'd make sure that there was no need to drive that day and someone reliable and sober to call just in case. Not extremely safe for me, maybe, but extremely safe for you- my neighbor and fellow citizen.

"Would you give it a rest? You're making this up. Another thing responsible people don't do is risk careers by making or using illegal drugs. A DUI for alcohol won't destroy your life so quickly."

Have you ever considered that the police isn't out to get those who cause zero public disturbance and don't profit from the misery of others? Cops don't generally bust down doors of peaceful, clean apartments just to check if a chemistry major is growing mushrooms in his walk in closet. Btw, mushroom spores and growing kits were legal 6 years ago, but the fresh mushrooms weren't. People ordered the kits and spores online and received them by mail, usually from Canada. I've seen it. Go check the facts. Truth is that, usually, to get in trouble, one must cause trouble first. Responsible people, first and foremost, don't ruin the lives of others. The police is more interested in the scum that drives drunk than in the possibility that there are laced brownies baking in the oven of a peaceful, productive citizen. I haven't since college, but I've met a lot of young teachers who smoke weed. A lot of kids in college tried it. You won't believe it, but a lot of kids in college and even professional people have sex too. In fact, half of my high school's National Honor Society were sexually active AND everyone had a drink before graduating. The police didn't bust down their doors either.

Southeast Asians notably don't have a problem with alcoholism, any more than more Northern Asians, likewise for South Asians in India.

I can't speak for south southeast asians, but those bordering China will share the "red face" distaste for alcohol, where the alcohol is rapidly metabolized to acetaldehyde, which itself is then slowly metabolized, allowing buildup of a rather unpleasant substance.

Chinese eating habits more readily spread hepatitis B, a virus which attacks the liver, a double whammy for the alcoholism inclined. In ancient literature one can find appreciation and use of alcohol far in excess of the modern day.

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